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Written in Folk Roots issue 129, 1994

KNUT REIERSRUD
Tramp
Kirkelig Kulturverksted FXCD 129 (1993)

A surprise and a delight; I've a strong feeling that if enough people get to hear it this could be one of the successes of '94.
      I hesitate to mention Ry Cooder, lest it should imply that Reiersrud is just following his lead, and he's certainly not doing that. He's breaking new ground that Cooder hasn't trod - he does, after all, start from a different place - and he does it in a way which appeals to the same musical taste buds as those early Cooder albums.
      The album's title translates into English as "footstomping", in a tribute to the foot as a musical instrument. There's no kit drumming; most of the percussive noises necessary, apart from Paolo Vinaccia's bass kalimba, djembe and talking drum on some tracks, come from the aforementioned feet and the sounds of the instruments, which are all given the space in a beautiful piece of production to really assert themselves. Alagi M'Bye's kora, which features on several tracks, makes a brilliant gutty contrast to Reiersrud's diverse straight and bottleneck guitar - Jarabe is a classic example, with its slow 8-note descending line under M'Bye's startling vocal.
      The duet between Reiersrud's guitar/vocal and Gambian Juldeh Camara's one-string fiddle/vocal, Baby Please Don't Go/Tobakobe, is the most perfect demonstration of the bond between the blues and West African music that I've ever heard.  
      Reiersrud is Norwegian (yet another example of big things happening in Scandinavia), and the Hardingfele and fiddle traditions are drawn into the web, most overtly on Fåreslåtten and the title track, which also involves Iver Kleive, whose organ playing is another key factor. The Five Blind Boys of Alabama are here too, and indeed the two tracks on which they collaborate You Ought to Treat a Stranger Right and Let Your Light Shine, both based on Blind Willie Johnson songs, are very satisfying. So is the whole album.
      The label obviously believes in it, awarding it an elegant Digipak, and it deserves wide distribution.

© 1994 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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